would be a nuisance to us, no more. If you wish to knowthe attitude of the Trades Unions, you should look at theTrades Union Congress which wholly supported us, andgave a very different picture of affairs. They knowwell that in all questions of labour, the trades unions havethe decisive voice. I told you that the unions send amajority of the members of the College which controls thework of this Commissariat. I should have added that thethree most important departments-the department forsafeguarding labour, the department for distributing labour,and that for regulating wages-are entirely controlled by theUnions."

"How do politics affect the Commissariat?"

"Not at all. Politics do not count with us, just because weare directly controlled by the Unions, and not, by anypolitical party. Mensheviks, Maximalists and others haveworked and are working in the Commissariat. Of course ifa man were opposed to the revolution as a whole we shouldnot have him here, because he would be working against usinstead of helping."

I asked whether he thought the trade unions would everdisappear in the Soviet organizations. He thought not. Onthe contrary, they had grown steadily throughout therevolution. He told me that one great change had beenmade in them. Trade unions have been mergedtogether into industrial unions, to prevent conflictbetween individual sections of one industry. Thusboilermakers and smiths do not have separate unions, butare united in the metal-workers' union. This unificationhas its effect on reforms and changes. An increase inwages, for example, is simultaneous all over Russia. Theprice of living varies very considerably in different parts ofthe country, there being as great differences between theclimates of different parts as there are between the countriesof Europe. Consequently a uniform absolute increasewould be grossly unfair to some and grossly favourable toothers. The increase is therefore proportional to the cost ofliving. Moscow is taken as a norm of 100, and when a newminimum wage is established for Moscow other districtsincrease their minimum wage proportionately. A table forthis has been worked out, whereby in comparison with 100for Moscow, Petrograd is set down as 120, Voronezh orKursk as 70, and so on.

We spoke of the new programme of the Communists,rough drafts of which were being printed in the newspapersfor discussion, and he showed me his own suggestionsin so far as the programme concerned labour. He wishedthe programme to include, among other aims, the furthermechanization of production, particularly the mechanizationof all unpleasant and dirty processes, improved sanitaryinspection, shortening of the working day in employmentsharmful to health, forbidding women with child to do anybut very light work, and none at all for eight weeks beforegiving birth and for eight weeks afterwards, forbiddingovertime, and so on. "We have already gone far beyondour old programme, and our new one steps far ahead of us.Russia is the first country in the world where all workershave a fortnight's holiday in the year, and workers indangerous or unhealthy occupations have a month's."

I said, "Yes, but don't you find that there is a very long waybetween the passing of a law and its realization?"

Schmidt laughed and replied: "In some things certainly,yes. For example, we are against all overtime, but, in thepresent state of Russia we should be sacrificing to a theorythe good of the revolution as a whole if we did not allowand encourage overtime in transport repairs. Similarly,until things are further developed than they are now, weshould be criminal slaves to theory if we did not, in somecases, allow lads under sixteen years old to be in thefactories when we have not yet been able to provide thenecessary schools where we would wish them to be. Butthe programme is there, and as fast as it can be realized weare realizing it."

EDUCATION

February 28th.

At the Commissariat of Public Education I showedProfessor Pokrovsky a copy of The German-BolshevikConspiracy, published in America, containing documentssupposed to prove that the German General Staff arrangedthe November Revolution, and that the Bolsheviks were nomore than German agents. The weak point about thedocuments is that the most important of them have noreason for existence except to prove that there was such aconspiracy. These are the documents bought by Mr.Sisson. I was interested to see what Pokrovsky would sayof them. He looked through them, and while saying that hehad seen forged documents better done, pointed as evidenceto the third of them which ends with the alleged signaturesof Zalkind, Polivanov, Mekhinoshin and Joffe. Heobserved that whoever forged the things knew a gooddeal, but did not know quite enough, because these persons,described as "plenipotentiaries of the Council of Peoples'Commissars," though all actually in the service of theSoviet Government, could not all, at that time, have beenwhat they were said to be. Polivanov, for example, was avery minor official. Joffe, on the other: hand, was indeed aperson of some importance. The putting of the names inthat order was almost as funny as if they had produced adocument signed by Lenin and the Commandant of theKremlin, putting the latter first.

Pokrovsky told me a good deal about the organization ofthis Commissariat, as Lunacharsky, the actual head of it,was away in Petrograd. The routine work is run by aCollege of nine members appointed by the Council ofPeople's Commissars. The Commissar of Educationhimself is appointed by the All-Russian ExecutiveCommittee. Besides this, there is a Grand College whichmeets rarely for the settlement of important questions. In itare representatives of the Trades Unions, theWorkers' Co-operatives, the Teachers' Union, variousCommissariats such as that for affairs of Nationality, andother public organizations. He also gave me then and at alater date a number of figures illustrating the work that hasbeen done since the revolution. Thus whereas there used tobe six universities there are now sixteen, most of the newuniversities having been opened on the initiative of the localSoviets, as at Astrakhan, Nijni, Kostroma, Tambov,Smolensk and other places. New polytechnics are beingfounded. At Ivano-Vosnesensk the new polytechnic isopened and that at Briansk is being prepared. The numberof students in the universities has increased enormouslythough not to the same proportion as the number ofuniversities, partly because the difficulties of food supplykeep many students out of the towns, and partly because ofthe newness of some of the universities which are only nowgathering their students about them. All education is free.In August last a decree was passed abolishing preliminaryexaminations for persons wishing to become students. Itwas considered that very many people who could attend thelectures with profit to themselves had been preventedby the war or by pre-revolution conditions from acquiringthe sort of knowledge that could be tested by examination.It was also believed that no one would willingly listen tolectures that were of no use to him. They hoped to get asmany working men into the universities as possible. Sincethe passing of that decree the number of students atMoscow University, for example, has more than doubled.It is interesting to notice that of the new students a greaternumber are studying in the faculties of science and historyand philosophy than in those of medicine or law. Schoolsare being unified on a new basis in which labour plays agreat part. I frankly admit I do not understand, and I gatherthat many teachers have also failed to understand, how thisis done. Crafts of all kinds take a big place in the scheme.The schools are divided into two classes-one for childrenfrom seven to twelve years old, and one for those agedfrom thirteen to seventeen. A milliard roubles has beenassigned to feeding children in the schools, and those whomost need them are supplied with clothes and footgear.Then there are many classes for working men,designed to give the worker a general scientific knowledgeof his own trade and so prevent him from being merely amachine carrying out a single uncomprehended process.Thus a boiler-maker can attend a course on mechanicalengineering, an electrical worker a course on electricity,and the best agricultural experts are being employed to givesimilar lectures to the peasants. The workmen crowd tothese courses. One course, for example, is attended by athousand men in spite of the appalling cold of the lecturerooms. The hands of the science professors, so Pokrovskytold me, are frostbitten from touching the icy metal of theirinstruments during demonstrations.

The following figures represent roughly the growth in thenumber of libraries. In October, 1917, there were 23libraries in Petrograd, 30 in Moscow. Today there are 49in Petrograd and 85 in Moscow, besides a hundred bookdistributing centres. A similar growth in the number oflibraries has taken place in the country districts. InOusolsky ouezd, for example, there are now 73 villagelibraries, 35 larger libraries and 500 hut libraries orreading rooms. In Moscow educational institutions, notincluding schools, have increased from 369 to 1,357.

There are special departments for the circulation of printedmatter, and they really have developed a remarkableorganization. I was shown over their headquarters on theTverskaya, and saw huge maps of Russia with all thedistributing centres marked with reference numbers so thatit was possible to tell in a moment what number of any newpublication should be sent to each. Every post office is adistributing centre to which is sent a certain number of allpublications, periodical and other. The local Soviets askthrough the post offices for such quantities as are required,so that the supply can be closely regulated by the demand.The book-selling kiosks send in reports of the sale of thevarious newspapers, etc., to eliminate the waste ofover-production, a very important matter in a country facedsimultaneously by a vigorous demand for printed matterand an extreme scarcity of paper.

It would be interesting to have statistics to illustrate thecharacter of the literature in demand. One thing can besaid at once. No one reads sentimental romances. As isnatural in a period of tremendous political upheavalpamphlets sell by the thousand, speeches of Lenin andTrotsky are only equalled in popularity by Demian Biedny'smore or less political poetry. Pamphlets and books onMarx, on the war, and particularly on certain phases of therevolution, on different aspects of economic reconstruction,simply written explanations of laws or policies vanishalmost as soon as they are put on the stalls. The reading ofthis kind has been something prodigious during therevolution. A great deal of poetry is read, and much iswritten. It is amusing to find in a red-hot revolutionarypaper serious articles and letters by well-meaning personsadvising would-be proletarian poets to stick to Pushkinand Lermontov. There is much excited controversy both inmagazine and pamphlet form as to the distinguishing marksof the new proletarian art which is expected to come out ofthe revolution and no doubt will come, though not in theform expected. But the Communists cannot be accused ofbeing unfaithful to the Russian classics. Even Radek,a foreign fosterchild and an adopted Russian, took Gogol aswell as Shakespeare with him when he went to annoyGeneral Hoffmann at Brest. The Soviet Government hasearned the gratitude of many Russians who dislike it foreverything else it has done by the resolute way in which ithas brought the Russian classics into the bookshops.Books that were out of print and unobtainable, likeKliutchevsky's "Courses in Russian History," have beenreprinted from the stereotypes and set afloat again at mostreasonable prices. I was also able to buy a book of hiswhich I have long wanted, his "Foreigners' Accounts of theMuscovite State," which had also fallen out of print. In thesame way the Government has reprinted, and sells at fixedlow prices that may not be raised by retailers, the works ofKoltzov, Nikitin, Krylov, Saltykov-Shtchedrin, Chekhov,Goncharov, Uspensky, Tchernyshevsky, Pomyalovsky andothers. It is issuing Chukovsky's edition of Nekrasov,reprints of Tolstoy, Dostoievsky and Turgenev, and booksby Professor Timiriazev, Karl Pearson and others of ascientific character, besides the complete works ofLenin's old rival, Plekhanov. It is true that most ofthis work is simply done by reprinting from oldstereotypes, but the point is that the books are there, and thesale for them is very large.

Among the other experts on the subject of the Soviet'seducational work I consulted two friends, a little boy,Glyeb, who sturdily calls himself a Cadet though three ofhis sisters work in Soviet institutions, and an old and verywise porter. Glyeb says that during the winter they had noheating, so that they sat in school in their coats, and onlysat for a very short time, because of the great cold. He toldme, however, that they gave him a good dinner there everyday, and that lessons would be all right as soon as theweather got warmer. He showed me a pair of felt bootswhich had been given him at the school. The old portersummed up the similar experience of his sons. "Yes," hesaid, "they go there, sing the Marseillaise twice through,have dinner and come home." I then took these expertcriticisms to Pokrovsky who said, "It is perfectly true. Wehave not enough transport to feed the armies, let alonebringing food and warmth for ourselves.

And if, under these conditions, we forced children togo through all their lessons we should have corpses toteach, not children. But by making them come for theirmeals we do two things, keep them alive, and keep them inthe habit of coming, so that when the warm weather comeswe can do better."

A BOLSHEVIK FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY

At Sukhanov's suggestion I went, to see ProfessorTimiriazev, the greatest Russian Darwinian, well-known tomany scientific men in this country, a foreign member ofthe Royal Society, a Doctor of Cambridge University and aBolshevik. He is about eighty years old. His left arm isparalysed, and, as he said, he can only work at his desk andnot be out and about to help as he would wish. Avenerable old savant, he was sitting writing with a greendressing gown about him, for his little flat was very cold.On the walls were portraits of Darwin, Newton and Gilbert,besides portraits of contemporary men of science whom hehad known. English books were everywhere. He gave me,two copies of his last scientific book and his latest portraitto take to two of his friends in England.

He lives with his wife and son. I asked if his son were also a Bolshevik.

"Of course," he replied.

He then read me a letter he had written protesting againstintervention. He spoke of his old love for England and forthe English people. Then, speaking of the veil of liesdrawn between Soviet Russia and the rest of the world, hebroke down altogether, and bent his head to hide his tears.

"I suffer doubly," he said, after excusing himself for theweakness of a very old man. "I suffer as a Russian, and, ifI may say so, I suffer as an Englishman. I have Englishblood in my veins. My mother, you see, looks quiteEnglish," pointing to a daguerreotype on the wall, "and mygrandmother was actually English. I suffer as anEnglishman when I see the country that I love misled bylies, and I suffer as a Russian because those lies concernthe country to which I belong, and the ideas which I amproud to hold."

The old man rose with difficulty, for he, like every one elsein Moscow, is half starved. He showed me his Byron, hisShakespeare, his Encyclopaedia Britannica, his Englishdiplomas. He pointed to the portraits on the wall. "If Icould but let them know the truth," he said, "those friendsof mine in England, they would protest against actionswhich are unworthy of the England we have lovedtogether."

DIGRESSION

At this point the chronological arrangement of my book,already weak, breaks down altogether. So far I have setdown, almost day by day, things seen and heard whichseemed to me characteristic and clear illustration of thementality of the Communists, of the work that has beendone or that they are trying to do, and of the general state ofaffairs. I spent the whole of my time in ceaselessinvestigation, talking now with this man, now with that,until at the end of a month I was so tired (besides beingpermanently hungry) that I began to fear rather than to seeknew experiences and impressions. The last two weeks ofmy stay were spent, not in visiting Commissariats, but incollecting masses of printed material, in talking with myfriends of the opposition parties, and, while it was inprogress, visiting daily the Conference in the Kremlinwhich, in the end, definitely announced itself as theThird International. I have considered it best to treat of thatConference more or less as a whole, and am thereforecompelled to disregard chronology altogether in puttingdown on paper, the results of some of my talks with theopposition. Some of these took place on the same days asmy visits to the Kremlin conference, and during those daysI was also partly engaged in getting to see the Britishprisoners in the Butyrka prison, in which I eventuallysucceeded. This is my excuse for the inadequacy of myaccount of the conference, an inadequacy which I regret themore as I was the only non-Communist who was able tobe there at all.

THE OPPOSITION

No man likes being hungry. No man likes being cold.Everybody in Moscow, as in Petrograd, is both hungry andcold. There is consequently very general and very bitterdiscontent. This is of course increased, not lessened, by thediscipline introduced into the factories and the heavyburden of the army, although the one is intended to hastenthe end of hunger and cold and the other for the defence ofthe revolution. The Communists, as the party in power,naturally bear the blame and are the objects of thediscontent, which will certainly within a short time beturned upon any other government that may succeed them.That government must introduce sterner discipline ratherthan weaker, and the transport and other difficulties of thecountry will remain the same, unless increased by thedisorder of a new upheaval and the active or passiveresistance of many who are convinced revolutionariesor will become so in answer to repression.

The Communists believe that to let power slip from theirhands at this moment would be treachery to the revolution.And, in the face of the advancing forces of the Allies andKolchak many of the leaders of the opposition are inclinedto agree with them, and temporarily to submit to what theyundoubtedly consider rank tyranny. A position has beenreached after these eighteen months not unlike that reachedby the English Parliament party in 1643. I am reminded ofa passage in Guizot, which is so illuminating that I make noapology for quoting it in full:--

"The party had been in the ascendant for three years:whether it had or had not, in church and state,accomplished its designs, it was at all events by its aid andconcurrence that, for three years, public affairs had beenconducted; this alone was sufficient to make many peopleweary of it; it was made responsible for the many evilsalready endured, for the many hopes frustrated; it wasdenounced as being no less addicted to persecution than thebishops, no less arbitrary than the king:]196]itsinconsistencies, its weaknesses, were recalled withbitterness; and, independently of this, even without factionsor interested views, from the mere progress of events andopinions, there was felt a secret need of new principles andnew rulers."

New rulers are advancing on Moscow from Siberia, but Ido not think that they claim that they are bringing withthem new principles. Though the masses may want newprinciples, and might for a moment submit to areintroduction of very old principles in desperate hope ofless hunger and less cold, no one but a lunatic couldimagine that they would for very long willingly submit tothem. In the face of the danger that they may be forced tosubmit not to new principles but to very old ones, thenon-Communist leaders are unwilling to use to the full thediscontent that exists. Hunger and cold are a good enoughbasis of agitation for anyone desirous of overturning anyexisting government. But the Left Social Revolutionaries,led by the hysterical but flamingly honest Spiridonova, arealone in having no scruples or hesitation in the matter, themore responsible parties fearing the anarchy andconsequent weakening of the revolution that wouldresult from any violent change.

THE LEFT SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARIES

The Left Social Revolutionaries want something so muchlike anarchy that they have nothing to fear in a collapse ofthe present system. They are for a partisan army, not aregular army. They are against the employment of officerswho served under the old regime. They are against theemployment of responsible technicians and commercialexperts in the factories. They believe that officers andexperts alike, being ex-bourgeois, must be enemies of thepeople, insidiously engineering reaction. They are opposedto any agreement with the Allies, exactly as they wereopposed to any agreement with the Germans. I heard themdescribe the Communists as "the bourgeois gendarmes ofthe Entente," on the ground that having offered concessionsthey would be keeping order in Russia for the benefit ofAllied capital. They blew up Mirbach, and would no doubttry to blow up any successors he might have. Not wantinga regular army (a low bourgeois weapon) they would welcomeoccupation in order that they, with bees in their bonnetsand bombs in their hands, might go about revolting against it.

I did not see Spiridonova, because on February 11, the veryday when I had an appointment with her, the Communistsarrested her, on the ground that her agitation was dangerousand anarchist in tendency, fomenting discontent without aprogramme for its satisfaction. Having a great respect forher honesty, they were hard put to it to know what to dowith her, and she was finally sentenced to be sent for a yearto a home for neurasthenics, "where she would be able toread and write and recover her normality." That theCommunists were right in fearing this agitation was provedby the troubles in Petrograd, where the workmen in someof the factories struck, and passed Left SocialRevolutionary resolutions which, so far from showing thatthey were awaiting reaction and General Judenitch, showedsimply that they were discontented and prepared to move tothe left.

THE MENSHEVIKS

The second main group of opposition is dominated by theMensheviks . Their chief leaders are Martov and Dan. Ofthese two, Martov is by far the cleverer, Dan the moregarrulous, being often led away by his own volubility intoagitation of a kind not approved by his friends. Both aremen of very considerable courage. Both are Jews.

The Mensheviks would like the reintroduction ofcapitalists, of course much chastened by experience, andproperly controlled by themselves. Unlike Spiridonova andher romantic supporters they approved of Chicherin's offerof peace and concessions to the Allies (see page 44). Theyhave even issued an appeal that the Allies should come toan agreement with "Lenin's Government." As may begathered from their choice of a name for the SovietGovernment, they are extremely hostile to it, but they fearworse things, and are consequently a little shy of exploitingas they easily could the dislike of the people for hunger andcold. They fear that agitation on these lines might wellresult in anarchy, which would leave the revolutiontemporarily defenceless against Kolchak, Denikin,Judenitch or any other armed reactionary. Theirnon-Communist enemies say of the Mensheviks:"They have no constructive programme; they wouldlike a bourgeois government back again, in orderthat they might be in opposition to it, on the left"

On March 2nd, I went to an election meeting of workersand officials of the Moscow Co-operatives. It wasbeastly cold in the hall of the University where themeeting was held, and my nose froze as well as my feet. Speakers were announced from the Communists, Internationalists, Mensheviks, and RightSocial Revolutionaries. The last-named did not arrive. The Presidium was for the most part non-Communist,and the meeting was about equally divided for andagainst the Communists. A Communist ledoff with a very bad speech on the general Europeansituation and to the effect that there was no salvation forRussia except by the way she was going. Lozovsky, theold Internationalist, spoke next, supporting the Bolsheviks'general policy but criticizing their suppression of thepress. Then came Dan, the Menshevik, to hear whom I hadcome. He is a little, sanguine man, who gets very hot as hespeaks. He conducted an attack on the whole Bolshevikposition combined with a declaration that so long as theyare attacked from without he is prepared to support them.The gist of his speech was: 1. He was in favour of fightingKolchak. 2. But the Bolshevik policy with regard to the peasants will,since as the army grows it must contain more and morepeasants, end in the creation of an army withcounter-revolutionary sympathies. 3. He objected to theBolshevik criticism of the Berne, delegation (see page 156)on very curious grounds, saying that though Thomas,Henderson, etc., backed their own Imperialists during thewar, all that was now over, and that union with them wouldhelp, not hinder, revolution in England and France. 4. Hepointed out that "All power to the Soviets" now means "Allpower to the Bolsheviks," and said that he wished that theSoviets should actually have all power instead of merelysupporting the Bolshevik bureaucracy. He was asked forhis own programme, but said he had not time to giveit. I watched the applause carefully. Generaldissatisfaction with the present state of affairs was obvious,but it was also obvious that no party would have a chancethat admitted its aim was extinction of the Soviets (whichDan's ultimate aim certainly is, or at least the changing ofthem into non-political industrial organizations) or that was notprepared to fight against reaction from without.

I went to see Sukhanov (the friend of Gorky and Martov,though his political opinions do not precisely agree withthose of either), partly to get the proofs of his first volumeof reminiscences of the revolution, partly to hear what hehad to say. I found him muffled up in a dressing gown orovercoat in an unheated flat, sitting down to tea with nosugar, very little bread, a little sausage and a surprisingscrap of butter, brought in, I suppose, from the country by afriend. Nikitsky, a Menshevik, was also there, a hopelessfigure, prophesying the rotting of the whole system and ofthe revolution. Sukhanov asked me if I had noticed thedisappearance of all spoons (there are now none, butwooden spoons in the Metropole) as a symbol of thefalling to pieces of the revolution. I told him that though Ihad not lived in Russia thirty years or more, as he had, Ihad yet lived there long enough and had, before therevolution, sufficient experience in the loss of fishingtackle, not to be surprised that Russian peasants, evendelegates, when able, as in such a moment of convulsion asthe revolution, stole spoons if only as souvenirs to showthat they had really been to Moscow.

We talked, of course, of their attitude towards theBolsheviks. Both work in Soviet institutions. Sukhanov(Nikitsky agreeing) believed that if the Bolsheviks camefurther to meet the other parties, Mensheviks, etc.,"Kolchak and Denikin would commit suicide and yourLloyd George would give up all thought of intervention." Iasked, What if they should be told to hold a ConstituentAssembly or submit to a continuance of the blockade?Sukhanov said, "Such a Constituent Assembly would beimpossible, and we should be against it." Of the Soviets,one or other said, "We stand absolutely on the platform ofthe Soviet Government now: but we think that such a formcannot be permanent. We consider the Soviets perfectinstruments of class struggle, but not a perfect form ofgovernment." I asked Sukhanov if he thought counterrevolution possible. He said "No," but admitted that therewas a danger lest the agitation of the Mensheviks or othersmight set fire to the discontent of the masses against theactual physical conditions, and end in pogroms destroyingBolsheviks and Mensheviks alike. Their general theorywas that Russia was not so far developed that a SocialistState was at present possible. They therefore wanted a statein which private capital should exist, and in which factorieswere not run by the state but by individual owners. Theybelieved that the peasants, with their instincts of smallproperty-holders, would eventually enforce something ofthe kind, and that the end would be some form ofdemocratic Republic. These two were against the offeringof concessions to the Allies, on the ground that those underconsideration involved the handing over to theconcessionaires of the whole power in northern Russia-railways,forests, the right to set up their own banks in thetowns served by the railway, with all that this implied.Sukhanov was against concessions on principle, andregretted that the Mensheviks were in favour of them.

I saw Martov at the offices of his newspaper, which hadjust been suppressed on account of an article, which headmitted was a little indiscreet, objecting to the upkeep ofthe Red Army (see page 167). He pointed eloquently to theseal on some of the doors, but told me that he had started anew paper, of which he showed me the first number, andtold me that the demand for it was such that although hehad intended that it should be a weekly he now expected tomake it a daily. Martov said that he and his party wereagainst every form of intervention for the followingreasons:1. The continuation of hostilities, the need of an army andof active defence were bound to intensify the least desirablequalities of the revolution whereas an agreement, bylessening the tension, would certainly lead to moderation ofBolshevik Policy. 2. The needs of the army overwhelmedevery effort at restoring the economic life of the country.He was further convinced that intervention of any kindfavoured reaction, even supposing that the Allies did notwish this. "They cannot help themselves," he said,"the forces that would support intervention must bedominated by those of reaction, since all of thenon-reactionary parties are prepared to sink theirdifferences with the Bolsheviks, in order to defend therevolution as a whole." He said he was convinced thatthe Bolsheviks would either have to alter orgo. He read me, in illustration of this, a letter from apeasant showing the unreadiness of the peasantry to go intocommunes (compulsion in this matter has already beendiscarded by the Central Government). "We took the land,"wrote the peasant in some such words, "not much, just asmuch as we could work, we ploughed it where it had notbeen ploughed before, and now, if it is made into acommune, other lazy fellows who have done nothing willcome in and profit by our work." Martov argued that lifeitself, the needs of the country and the will of the peasantmasses, would lead to the changes he thinks desirable in theSoviet regime.

THE RIGHT SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARIES

The position of the Right Social Revolutionaries is a gooddeal more complicated than that of the Mensheviks. In their later declarations they are as far from theirromantic anarchist left wing as they are from theirromantic reactionary extreme right. They stand,as they have always stood, for a Constituent Assembly, butthey have thrown over the idea of instituting a ConstituentAssembly by force. They have come into closer contactwith the Allies than any other party to the left of the Cadets.By doing so, by associating themselves with the Czechforces on the Volga and minor revolts of a reactionarycharacter inside Russia, they have pretty badlycompromised themselves. Their change of attitude towardsthe Soviet Government must not be attributed to any changein their own programme, but to the realization that theforces which they imagined were supporting them wereactually being used to support something a great dealfurther right. The Printers' Gazette, a non-Bolshevikorgan, printed one of their resolutions, one point of whichdemands the overthrow of the reactionary governmentssupported by the Allies or the Germans, and anothercondemns every attempt to overthrow the SovietGovernment by force of arms, on the ground that suchan attempt would weaken the working class as a whole andwould be used by the reactionary groups for their ownpurposes.

Volsky is a Right Social Revolutionary, and was Presidentof that Conference of Members of the ConstituentAssembly from whose hands the Directorate which ruled inSiberia received its authority and Admiral Kolchak hiscommand, his proper title being Commander of the Forcesof the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assemblymembers were to have met on January 1st of this year, thento retake authority from the Directorate and organize agovernment on an All-Russian basis. But there wascontinual friction between the Directorate and theConference of members of the Constituent Assembly, theDirectorate being more reactionary than they. In Novembercame Kolchak's coup d'=82tat, followed by a declarationagainst him and an appeal for his overthrow issued bymembers of the Constituent Assembly. Some were arrestedby a group of officers. A few are said to have been killed.Kolchak, I think, has denied responsibility for this, andprobably was unaware of the intentions of thereactionaries under his command. Others of the membersescaped to Ufa. On December 5th, 25 days before thattown was taken by the Bolsheviks, they announced theirintention of no longer opposing the Soviet Government inthe field. After the capture of the town by the Soviettroops, negotiations were begun between therepresentatives of the Conference of Members of theConstituent Assembly, together with other Right SocialRevolutionaries, and representatives of the SovietGovernment, with a view to finding a basis for agreement.The result of those negotiations was the resolution passedby the Executive Committee on February 26th (see page166). A delegation of the members came to Moscow, andwere quaintly housed in a huge room in the Metropole,where they had put up beds all round the walls and bigtables in the middle of the room for their deliberations. Itwas in this room that I saw Volsky first, and afterwards inmy own.

I asked him what exactly had brought him and all that herepresented over from the side of Kolchak and the Allies tothe side of the Soviet Government. He looked mestraight in the face, and said: "I'll tell you. We wereconvinced by many facts that the policy of the Alliedrepresentatives in Siberia was directed not to strengtheningthe Constituent Assembly against the Bolsheviks and theGermans, but simply to strengthening the reactionary forcesbehind our backs."

He also complained: "All through last summer we wereholding that front with the Czechs, being told that therewere two divisions of Germans advancing to attack us, andwe now know that there were no German troops in Russiaat all."

He criticized the Bolsheviks for being better makers ofprogrammes than organizers. They offered free electricity,and presently had to admit that soon there would be noelectricity for lack of fuel. They did not sufficiently basetheir policy on the study of actual possibilities. "But thatthey are really fighting against a bourgeois dictatorship isclear to us. We are, therefore, prepared to help them inevery possible way."

He said, further: "Intervention of any kindwill prolong the regime of the Bolsheviks bycompelling us to drop opposition to the Soviet Government,although we do not like it, and to support it because it isdefending the revolution."

With regard to help given to individual groups orgovernments fighting against Soviet Russia, Volsky saidthat they saw no difference between such intervention andintervention in the form of sending troops.

I asked what he thought would happen. He answered inalmost the same words as those used by Martov, that lifeitself would compel the Bolsheviks to alter their policy orto go. Sooner or later the peasants would make their willfelt, and they were against the bourgeoisie and against theBolsheviks. No bourgeois reaction could win permanentlyagainst the Soviet, because it could have nothing to offer,no idea for which people would fight. If by any chanceKolchak, Denikin and Co. were to win, they would have tokill in tens of thousands where the Bolsheviks have had tokill in hundreds, and the result would be the complete ruinand the collapse of Russia in anarchy. "Has not theUkraine been enough to teach the Allies that even sixmonths' occupation of non-Bolshevik territoryby half a million troops has merely the effect ofturning the population into Bolsheviks?"

THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL

March 3rd.

One day near the end of February, Bucharin, hearing that Imeant to leave quite soon, said rather mysteriously, "Wait afew days longer, because something of internationalimportance is going to happen which will certainly be ofinterest for your history." That was the only hint I got ofthe preparation of the Third International. Bucharin refusedto say more. On March 3rd Reinstein looked in about ninein the morning and said he had got me a guest's ticket forthe conference in the Kremlin, and wondered why I had notbeen there the day before, when it had opened. I told him Iknew nothing whatever about it; Litvinov and Karakhan,whom I had seen quite recently, had never mentioned it,and guessing that this must be the secret at which Bucharinhad hinted, I supposed that they had purposely keptsilence. I therefore rang up Litvinov, and asked if theyhad had any reason against my going. He said that he hadthought it would not interest me. So I went. TheConference was still a secret. There was nothing about it inthe morning papers.

The meeting was in a smallish room, with a dais at one end,in the old Courts of Justice built in the time of Catherine theSecond, who would certainly have turned in her grave ifshe had known the use to which it was being put. Twovery smart soldiers of the Red Army were guarding thedoors. The whole room, including the floor, was decoratedin red. There were banners with "Long Live the ThirdInternational" inscribed upon them in many languages. ThePresidium was on the raised dais at the end of the room,Lenin sitting in the middle behind a long red-covered tablewith Albrecht, a young German Spartacist, on the right andPlatten, the Swiss, on the left. The auditorium sloped downto the foot of the dais. Chairs were arranged on each sideof an alleyway down the middle, and the four or five frontrows had little tables for convenience in writing.Everybody of importance was there; Trotzky,Zinoviev, Kamenev, Chichern, Bucharin, Karakhan,Litvinov, Vorovsky, Steklov, Rakovsky, representing herethe Balkan Socialist Party, Skripnik, representing theUkraine. Then there were Stang (Norwegian LeftSocialists), Grimlund (Swedish Left), Sadoul (France),Finberg (British Socialist Party), Reinstein (AmericanSocialist Labour Party), a Turk, a German-Austrian,a Chinese, and so on. Business was conducted andspeeches were made in all languages, thoughwhere possible German was used, because more of theforeigners knew German than knew French. This wasunlucky for me.

When I got there people were making reports about thesituation in the different countries. Finberg spoke inEnglish, Rakovsky in French, Sadoul also. Skripnik, who,being asked, refused to talk German and said he wouldspeak in either Ukrainian or Russia, and to most people'srelief chose the latter, made several interesting points aboutthe new revolution in the Ukraine. The killing of theleaders under the Skoropadsky regime had made nodifference to the movement, and town after town wasfalling after internal revolt. (This was before they hadKiev and, of course, long before they had taken Odessa,both of which gains they confidently prophesied.) Thesharp lesson of German occupation had taught theUkrainian Social Revolutionaries what their experiencesduring the last fifteen months had taught the Russian, andall parties were working together.

But the real interest of the gathering was in its attitudetowards the Berne conference. Many letters had beenreceived from members of that conference, Longuet forexample, wishing that the Communists had beenrepresented there, and the view taken at Moscow was thatthe left wing at Berne was feeling uncomfortable at sittingdown with Scheidemann and Company; let them definitelybreak with them, finish with the Second International andjoin the Third. It was clear that this gathering in theKremlin was meant as the nucleus of a new Internationalopposed to that which had split into national groups, eachsupporting its own government in the prosecution of thewar. That was the leit motif of the whole affair.

Trotsky, in a leather coat, military breeches andgaiters, with a fur hat with the sign of the Red Army infront, was looking very well, but a strange figure for thosewho had known him as one of the greatestanti-militarists in Europe. Lenin sat quietly listening,speaking when necessary in almost every Europeanlanguage with astonishing ease. Balabanova talked aboutItaly and seemed happy at last, even in Soviet Russia, to beonce more in a "secret meeting." It was really anextraordinary affair and, in spite of some childishness, Icould not help realizing that I was present at something thatwill go down in the histories of socialism, much like thatother strange meeting convened in London in 1848.

The vital figures of the conference, not counting Platten,whom I do not know and on whom I can express noopinion, were Lenin and the young German, Albrecht, who,fired no doubt by the events actually taking place in hiscountry, spoke with brain and character. The GermanAustrian also seemed a real man. Rakovsky, Skripnik, andSirola the Finn really represented something. But there wasa make-believe side to the whole affair, in which theEnglish Left Socialists were represented by Finberg, andthe Americans by Reinstein, neither of whom had or waslikely to have any means of communicating with hisconstituents.

March 4th.

In the Kremlin they were discussing the programme onwhich the new International was to stand. This is, ofcourse, dictatorship of the proletariat and all that thatimplies. I heard, Lenin make a long speech, the main pointof which was to show that Kautsky and his supporters atBerne were now condemning the very tactics which theyhad praised in 1906. When I was leaving the Kremlin I metSirola walking in the square outside the building without ahat, without a coat, in a cold so intense that I was puttingsnow on my nose to prevent frostbite. I exclaimed. Sirolasmiled his ingenuous smile. "It is March," he said, "Springis coming."

March 5th.

Today all secrecy was dropped, a little prematurely, Ifancy, for when I got to the Kremlin I found that the firstnote of opposition had been struck by the man who least ofall was expected to strike it. Albrecht, the young German,had opposed the immediate founding of the ThirdInternational, on the double ground that not all nations wereproperly represented and that it might make difficulties forthe political parties concerned in their own countries.Every one was against him. Rakovsky pointed out that thesame objections could have been raised against thefounding of the First International by Marx in London. TheGerman-Austrian combated Albrecht's second point.Other people said that the different parties concerned hadlong ago definitely broken with the Second International.Albrecht was in a minority of one. It was decided thereforethat this conference was actually the Third International.Platten announced the decision, and the "International" wassung in a dozen languages at once. Then Albrecht stoodup, a little red in the face, and said that he, of course,recognized the decision and would announce it in Germany.

March 6th.

The conference in the Kremlin ended with the usual singingand a photograph. Some time before the end, whenTrotsky had just finished speaking and had left the tribune,there was a squeal of protest from the photographer whohad just trained his apparatus. Some one remarked "TheDictatorship of the Photographer," and, amid generallaughter, Trotsky had to return to the tribune and standsilent while the unabashed photographer took two pictures.The founding of the Third International had beenproclaimed in the morning papers, and an extraordinarymeeting in the Great Theatre announced for the evening. Igot to the theatre at about five, and had difficulty in gettingin, though I had a special ticket as a correspondent. Therewere queues outside all the doors. The Moscow Soviet wasthere, the Executive Committee, representatives of theTrades Unions and the Factory Committees, etc. The hugetheatre and the platform were crammed, people standing inthe aisles and even packed close together in the wings ofthe stage. Kamenev opened the meeting by a solemnannouncement of the founding of the ThirdInternational in the Kremlin. There was a roar of applausefrom the audience, which rose and sang the "International"in a way that I have never heard it sung since theAll-Russian Assembly when the news came of the strikes inGermany during the Brest negotiations. Kamenev thenspoke of those who had died on the way, mentioningLiebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, and the whole theatrestood again while the orchestra played, "You fell asvictims." Then Lenin spoke. If I had ever thought thatLenin was losing his personal popularity, I got my answernow. It was a long time before he could speak at all,everybody standing and drowning his attempts to speakwith roar after roar of applause. It was an extraordinary,overwhelming scene, tier after tier crammed with workmen,the parterre filled, the whole platform and the wings. Aknot of workwomen were close to me, and they almostfought to see him, and shouted as if each one weredetermined that he should hear her in particular. He spokeas usual, in the simplest way, emphasizing the fact that therevolutionary struggle everywhere was forced to use theSoviet forms. "We declare our solidarity withthe aims of the Sovietists," he read from an Italianpaper, and added, "and that was when they did notknow what our aims were, and before we had anestablished programme ourselves." Albrecht madea very long reasoned speech for Spartacus, whichwas translated by Trotsky. Guilbeau, seemingly a merechild, spoke of the socialist movement in France. Steklovwas translating him when I left. You must remember that Ihad had nearly two years of such meetings, and am not aRussian. When I got outside the theatre, I found at eachdoor a disappointed crowd that had been unable to get in.

The proceedings finished up next day with a review in theRed Square and a general holiday.

If the Berne delegates had come, as they were expected,they would have been told by the Communists that theywere welcome visitors, but that they were not regarded asrepresenting the International. There would then haveensued a lively battle over each one of the delegates, theMensheviks urging him to stick to Berne, and theCommunists urging him to express allegiance to theKremlin. There would have been demonstrations andcounter-demonstrations, and altogether I am very sorrythat it did not happen and that I was not there to see.

LAST TALK WITH LENIN

I went to see Lenin the day after the Review in the RedSquare, and the general holiday in honour of the ThirdInternational. The first thing he said was: "I am afraid thatthe Jingoes in England and France will make use ofyesterday's doings as an excuse for further action againstus. They will say 'How can we leave them in peace whenthey set about setting the world on fire?' To that I wouldanswer, 'We are at war, Messieurs! And just as duringyour war you tried to make revolution in Germany, andGermany did make trouble in Ireland and India, so we,while we are at war with you, adopt the measures that areopen to us. We have told you we are willing to makepeace.'"

He spoke of Chicherin's last note, and said they based alltheir hopes on it. Balfour had said somewhere, "Let the fireburn itself out." That it would not do. But the quickestway of restoring good conditions in Russia was, of course,peace and agreement with the Allies. "I am sure we couldcome to terms, if they want to come to terms at all.England and America would be willing, perhaps, if theirhands were not tied by France. But intervention in thelarge sense can now hardly be. They must have learnt thatRussia could never be governed as India is governed, andthat sending troops here is the same thing as sending themto a Communist University."

I said something about the general hostility to theirpropaganda noticeable in foreign countries.

Lenin. "Tell them to build a Chinese wall round each oftheir countries. They have their customs-officers, theirfrontiers, their coast-guards. They can expel anyBolsheviks they wish. Revolution does not depend onpropaganda. If the conditions of revolution are not there nosort of propaganda will either hasten or impede it. The warhas brought about those conditions in all countries, and Iam convinced that if Russia today were to be swallowed upby the sea, were to cease to exist altogether, the revolutionin the rest of Europe would go on. Put Russia underwater for twenty years, and you would not affect by ashilling or an hour a week the demand, of theshop-stewards in England."

I told him, what I have told most of them many times, that Idid not believe there would be a revolution in England.

Lenin. "We have a saying that a man may have typhoidwhile still on his legs. Twenty, maybe thirty years ago I hadabortive typhoid, and was going about with it,had had it some days before it knocked me over. Well,England and France and Italy have caught the diseasealready. England may seem to you to be untouched, but themicrobe is already there."

I said that just as his typhoid was abortive typhoid, so thedisturbances in England to which he alluded might well beabortive revolution, and come to nothing. I told him thevague, disconnected character of the strikes and thegenerally liberal as opposed to socialist character of themovement, so far as it was political at all, reminded me ofwhat I had heard of 1905 in Russia and not at all of1917, and that I was sure it would settle down.

Lenin. "Yes, that is possible. It is, perhaps, an educativeperiod, in which the English workmen will come to realizetheir political needs, and turn from liberalism to Socialism.Socialism is certainly weak in England. Your socialistmovements, your socialist parties . . . when I was inEngland I zealously attended everything I could, and for acountry with so large an industrial population they werepitiable, pitiable . . . a handful at a street corner . . . ameeting in a drawing room . . . a school class . . . pitiable.But you must remember one great difference betweenRussia of 1905 and England of to-day. Our first Soviet inRussia was made during the revolution. Yourshop-stewards committees have been in existencelong before. They are without programme, withoutdirection, but the opposition they will meet will forcea programme upon them."

Speaking of the expected visit of the Berne delegation, heasked me if I knew MacDonald, whose name had beensubstituted for that of Henderson in later telegramsannouncing their coming. He ,said: "I am very gladMacDonald is coming instead of Henderson. Of courseMacDonald is not a Marxist in any sense of the word, buthe is at least interested in theory, and can therefore betrusted to do his best to understand what is happening here.More than that we do not ask."

We then talked a little on a subject that interests me verymuch, namely, the way in which insensibly, quite apartfrom war, the Communist theories are being modified in thedifficult process of their translation into practice. Wetalked of the changes in "workers' control," which is now avery different thing from the wild committee business thatat first made work almost impossible. We talked then ofthe antipathy of the peasants to compulsory communism,and how that idea also had been considerably whittledaway. I asked him what were going to be the relationsbetween the Communists of the towns and theproperty-loving peasants, and whether there wasnot great danger of antipathy between them, and saidI regretted leaving too soon to see the elasticity ofthe Communist theories tested by the inevitablepressure of the peasantry.

Lenin said that in Russia there was a pretty sharpdistinction between the rich peasants and the poor. "Theonly opposition we have here in Russia is directly orindirectly due to the rich peasants. The poor, as soon asthey are liberated from the political domination of the rich,are on our side and are in an enormous majority."

I said that would not be so in the Ukraine, where propertyamong the peasants is much more equally distributed.

Lenin. "No. And there, in the Ukraine, you will certainlysee our policy modified. Civil war, whatever happens, islikely to be more bitter in the Ukraine than elsewhere,because there the instinct of property has been furtherdeveloped in the peasantry, and the minority and majoritywill be more equal."

He asked me if I meant to return, saying that I could godown to Kiev to watch the revolution there as I hadwatched it in Moscow. I said I should be very sorry tothink that this was my last visit to the country which Ilove only second to my own. He laughed, and paid me thecompliment of saying that, "although English," I had moreor less succeeded in understanding what they were at, andthat he should be pleased to see me again.

THE JOURNEY OUT

March 15th.

There is nothing to record about the last few days of myvisit, fully occupied as they were with the collection andpacking of printed material and preparations for departure.I left with the two Americans, Messrs. Bullitt and Steffens,who had come to Moscow some days previously, andtravelled up in the train with Bill Shatov, the Commandantof Petrograd, who is not a Bolshevik but a fervent admirerof Prince Kropotkin, for the distribution of whose works inRussia he has probably done as much as any man. Shatovwas an emigr=82 in New York, returned to Russia, broughtlaw and order into the chaos of the Petrograd-Moscowrailway, never lost a chance of doing a good turn to anAmerican, and with his level-headedness and practicalsense became one of the hardest worked servants of theSoviet, although, as he said, the moment peoplestopped attacking them he would be the first to pull downthe Bolsheviks. He went into the occupied provincesduring the German evacuation of them, to buy arms andammunition from the German soldiers. Prices, he said, ranlow. You could buy rifles for a mark each, field guns for150 marks, and a field wireless station for 500. He hadthen been made Commandant of Petrograd, although therehad been some talk of setting him to reorganize transport.Asked how long he thought the Soviet Government couldhold but, he replied, "We can afford to starve another yearfor the sake of the Revolution."